As is typical of most software, the Carrara manual was written by geeks who couldn't teach water to run downhill.  I can't fill in all the blanks they left nor find a lot of the things mentioned - maybe because it's only the second 3D program I've tried.

Can anyone recommend some kind of training material that might help me?

Thanks,

Larry (lferrand)

Hi,
Welcome to carrara.
Well...not as much as for some programs, but still things available. pdf's included w/ product have movies, these can be good. Should at least take a look at the interface section of the manual. Lynda.com, DAZ, polyloop.net (has tuts, but can get all the 3dxtract mags free, I think this is still there, anyway) awbenson.com also may find digitalpainters.net helpful. Also, there is one book,(on amazon and elsewhere) which would be ok for beginners or new people...not comprehensive of all the new features in other words.

search for Carrara 5 Training on ebay. It costs about a third of retail. I got mine from a place called "onelessbook" on ebay
I'm not affiliated with it.
There I got a dvd that's made by a company called software video.
So far I'm happy with the small amont of viewing I had time for.

Try Lynda.com they have video training for Carrara 5.

Hope that works for u ddaydreams....there is no retail for that video. I was not impressed w/ demo. Seems like those cheapy training cds you can get many places.

Attached Link: http://www.softwarevideo.com/shoppingcart2/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=66

Here's a link above to the manufacturer where it's $99.00. I mentioned ebay becuase it's a third the price (around 29.00 +ship) and not just a burn, but a manufactures disk.

You could pay lots more and maybe find something better, I don't know , I've only tried this for carrara. For other software I use I have 8 differant training items from Gnome, Lydia and the like.

They (softwarevideo) seem pretty experienced and make many other training disks for other software.
What little I saw was good but basic. Way better than thumbing thru a manual. Since the question was "Can anyone recommend some kind of training material that might help me"

That's what I did
Hope that helps

Good to know you are finding it of use.

You can also check out the backroom here for a few tutorials.

Thanks everyone for your help. I checked out the free trial videos at Lynda.com, and it looks like it's pretty thorough. I think that's the one I'm going to start with.

Larry

Try the Carrara 5 Pro Handbook.

Try taking a look at Mark Bremmers post in this forum http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2666843

Some nice free trial tutorials, very well presented.